Destroyer of Cities t-5

by Christian Cameron

  One of the men nodded.

  The girl with the baby spat in the sand. Through her tears, she said, ‘Lord, you think I should go back to my village?’

  At his shoulder, Helios said, ‘Tanais could take them, lord, and they’d be no worse. Maybe better.’

  ‘Apollo,’ Satyrus said. ‘A ship to Tanais? That’d cost.’

  Helios held out his new gold cup. ‘I’ll pay, lord. I was one of them, once. Lord — you have no idea. The shame. . the terror.’ Helios’ eyes filled with tears. ‘None of us could ever go home, lord. That world is gone. Who will wed her? Who will take this man in his forge, or on his farm? What of the ones who saw their families killed? Who will understand them?’ Helios stood straight.

  ‘Surely people know that the gods love us when we take care-’ Satyrus paused. That was what Pythagoreans believed.

  Helios cut in — perhaps the first time he had ever cut off his master. ‘Lord, you may live like that, and the men who are your companions. But peasants would say that she is unlucky. That he is cursed. He lived with pirates — he’s a pirate. She’s a whore.’

  Satyrus looked at the educated man who had made himself their orator. ‘Is this. . true?’ he asked.

  The man nodded. ‘Your hypaspist speaks for them better than I could, lord. If you find it in your heart to send them somewhere together, it would be best. Some will die anyway, but some might make new lives. And any who disagree can simply walk away.’

  Satyrus felt as if his brain was filled with glue, but he managed to make the wheels turn over a few times.

  ‘Helios, you will see to it that all these people go to Rhodes — in a different ship from the captives. Yes?’ He smiled at his hypaspist.

  Helios nodded.

  ‘See to it that they are lodged by Abraham at my expense, and add them to my freedmen who will be going as colonists to Tanais. See to all that, and then rejoin Amyntas as a marine aboard Oinoe and await my return.’ Satyrus smiled. ‘Think of this as a way to reintroduce them to life.’

  Helios grinned. ‘But who will see to you, lord?’

  Satyrus raised an eyebrow. ‘I lived before I had you, boy. Besides, Charmides never does any work-’

  He straightened his shoulders, heartened. Feeling morally good. A rare feeling for a soldier.

  ‘You go to pursue the rest of the pirates?’ asked the man who’d been a captive.

  Satyrus nodded.

  ‘May I come aboard as a volunteer?’ the man asked. ‘I’m a capable spearman. And I would dearly love to put iron in a few bellies. And I play the lyre — I’m a musician. I could play for your oarsmen-’

  ‘Do you believe in the gods?’ Satyrus asked suddenly.

  ‘Only a fool does not,’ the man said.

  ‘Welcome, then. Have you ever taught the lyre?’ Satyrus asked. He could see that both Black Falcon and Oinoe were almost loaded, the loot crowding the gunwales, the prisoners herded together under the watchful eye of Amyntas the Macedonian, who had a spear in one hand and a golden cup full of wine in the other.

  ‘Alexander never gave me a gold cup,’ he shouted. ‘I drink to you, lord king!’

  This must be what it is like to be a god, Satyrus thought.

  ‘Lyre and kithara, too. Some dancing, and some sword work, yes. I teach rich men’s sons. Anaxagoras of Athens. Friends call me Ax.’

  Satyrus held out his arm, and they clasped. ‘Most of my friends are dead,’ Satyrus said. ‘Most men call me “lord”.’ He hadn’t meant to sound so bitter.

  Anaxagoras nodded. ‘That’s natural, and I’m an obsequious bastard myself. Shall I call you “godlike Achilles”? or perhaps “Alexander come again”?’

  Satyrus laughed. ‘And the pirates didn’t gut you?’ he said. ‘I mean, you talked like this and lived?’

  Anaxagoras shrugged. ‘Some people find me entertaining.’

  MILETUS, HEADQUARTERS OF ANTIGONUS ONE-EYE, THE TEMPLE OF POSEIDON

  Antigonus One-Eye was seventy-eight years old, a shambling monster of a man, still strong, still quick, possessed of so much energy that men spoke of it in a hush and made signs against the supernatural. His hair was the colour of old steel — the steel of a good sword, carefully maintained. His shoulders were still broad, the sinews that knit his arms to his neck still thick like rope. Men gathered to watch him exercise in the gymnasium.

  His son Demetrios had all the godlike grace and beauty that his bestial father lacked: golden curls, a perfect, slim physique. Not for nothing did men call him ‘the Golden’. But when his temper flared and his annoyance rose, men died.

  The procession had just reached the steps up to the Acropolis of the city. The Temple of Poseidon rose above the steep hill, the largest temple in Miletus and, some said, in all the world. Twelve thousand men and women crowded the steps, restrained in their enthusiasm by another four thousand of Antigonus’ soldiers, elite silver shields who had served Alexander. They were old men now themselves, those veterans of Arabella and Issus, Jaxartes and India; the youngest of them was nearly half a century old, and the oldest well beyond that — their shields and hair were silver, but their bodies were iron hard.

  The priests — Antigonus had demanded the attendance of every priest in the city — were late. At the top of the steps, Demetrios could see the priestess of Artemis — coldly beautiful, a distant and arrogant figure. Demetrios fancied her instantly and began to wonder what he’d have to do to win her — even for an hour. It was a pleasant enough fantasy, and it passed the time.

  ‘You think this is foolish, don’t you, boy?’ growled the old man.

  Demetrios smiled beatifically. ‘Pater, you are rarely foolish. And you have been right so many times when I was wrong-’ the golden god shrugged. ‘If you wish us to be kings, let us be kings.’

  ‘Symbols matter, boy. Ptolemy stole a march on us when he had himself crowned. Helped solidify the very loyalties we’ve worked so hard to break.’ The old man coughed into his hand. ‘Let us be kings.’ He looked back at the procession and the crowds. ‘From soldiers to kings. A long climb. Like these endless fucking steps.’

  Below them, at the base of the long stoa of columns that ran away down the hill, the place where the richer townsmen congregated, all built and paid for by Antigonus, Demetrios could see a man in a military chiton, running.

  ‘When we finish all this, you take the fleet to Cyprus and I’ll get the main army in transports.’ Antigonus smiled at his golden son. Subtle as a snake, vengeful, mean, bestial, monstrous — Antigonus was called all of these things, but the one thing the world knew of him was that he loved his son.

  The smile that broke across Demetrios’ sun-like face suggested that Antigonus’ affection was not wasted. ‘At last! I hoped we were just waiting for this — that is to say, that’s fine, Pater. Cyprus?’

  Antigonus paused for a moment, savouring his words. Above them, the beautiful priestess of Artemis made a small motion with her hand, infinitely elegant, and a long line of trumpeters stepped up onto a temporary platform. The sound of their trumpets was the sound of elephants and the neighing of horses, and for a moment, Demetrios was in battle inside his head — battle, for which he lived, better than the sighs of women under him and the roar of acclamation from fifty thousand throats.

  The trumpets died away, and the echoes returned slowly from the cliffs east of the city, where the Persian siege engines had been placed two centuries before.

  Antigonus put a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘Cyprus matters. I need you to win there. Scatter Ptolemy’s fleet. Because the target is Aegypt.’

  Demetrios, used to his father’s deep strategy and sudden changes of direction, was nevertheless taken aback. Heads turned — it looked as if the old monster and the young god were having a quarrel: big news at court.

  ‘But. . we’ve already lost a quarter of the season. And we’re no better supplied than when I-’ Demetrios was seldom at a loss for words, but he was surprised.

  ‘I have the stores laid in. We s
upply ourselves from the sea — after you defeat Ptolemy. We use the sea to outflank his defences in Gaza. We move so fast that we’re in Alexandria before winter.’

  The procession began to move.

  ‘You are brilliant — or mad.’ Demetrios smiled, waved at the crowd. ‘So that’s why we aren’t being crowned at Athens.’

  The old man nodded to an equally old Silver-Shield — the nod of one veteran to another. ‘That’s right, boy. I needed the spring to gather grain. When Dekas brings me the Euxine grain, I’m ready.’

  ‘Effeminate idiot,’ Demetrios said. He had no time for Dekas.

  Antigonus paused, his foot on the top step of the triumphal steps that rose ten times the height of a man from the streets below, a conscious effort to best the steps up Athens’ Acropolis. ‘Lad,’ he said, and turned his head so that the full weight of his mighty stare rested on his son. ‘Lad, you must rise above these “likes” and “dislikes”. Dekas is not, perhaps, an epic hero. You would not, perhaps, invite him to a select symposium hosted to reward your best men, your loyal friends. But he is our tool. His hatred of the Euxine upstart and Ptolemy is the break for which we have waited four summers. Loathe him if you want — but remember that he was sent us by the gods, and he is an instrument of the gods.’

  Demetrios hated it when his father spoke of the gods. Demetrios was a modern man — a rationalist. His father’s superstition annoyed him. And Dekas was loathsome. Whereas Satyrus of Tanais, the ‘Euxine upstart’, was a worthy adversary — the sort of man whose measure made you bigger. Hektor to my Achilles.

  Demetrios managed a small smile, because if he could believe that Satyrus was his Hektor, he was as superstitious as his pater. And Pater was no fool. ‘I will pay Dekas the respect he is due,’ Demetrios agreed. ‘The priests are waving to us, Pater. We should square our shoulders and move.’

  The runner in the plain military tunic had almost reached them, though. He was obviously a messenger, and this close it could be seen that he bore one of Antigonus’ personal messenger tubes — an iron scroll plated in solid gold, the only badge the runner needed.

  ‘This won’t be good,’ Antigonus said with a grin for the crowd. ‘No officer of mine would send a runner through the crowd with good news. Brace yourself, and don’t show it, whatever it is.’

  Pater thought of everything.

  Demetrios schooled his face and stood with his father. The runner didn’t slow for the steps, moving with a lithe grace that equalled that of the priestess of Artemis. He sprang up the steps, his pace unabated, until he arrived at the old strategos and extended the tube, his eyes cast down.

  ‘Just tell me, lad,’ One-Eye said gruffly.

  ‘The Rhodians and the Euxine prince have routed Dekas, lord.’ The runner bowed. It was never good to deliver bad news. On the other hand, the Antigonids were professionals, not petty tyrants.

  Demetrios smiled, touched the runner’s face with his right hand. ‘What regiment?’ he asked.

  ‘Spears of Isis,’ the young man replied.

  ‘You run well,’ Demetrios said, to put the young man at ease.

  Antigonus shrugged very slightly, giving nothing away to the crowd. ‘Come, my son,’ he said. ‘Let us become kings together.’

  He took his golden son’s hand in his and raised it over his head like a man winning an athletic contest, and the crowd roared its approval. Flower petals fell thickly, sweet poppies and roses.

  ‘Fuck Rhodes, and fuck Satyrus of Tanais,’ Antigonus said under his breath. ‘I’ll see them destroyed.’

  Pater didn’t like to have his plans thwarted. But for Demetrios, it would be all the sweeter that he, and not the useless Dekas, would go to defeat Satyrus.

  BOOK TWO

  AEGYPT

  11

  The moment they were aboard, Satyrus and Neiron got the wind under their stern and the bow pointed south, and virtually the entire crew of the Falcon, with the exception of the deck crew, went to sleep as quickly as if Circe herself had ensorcelled them. Satyrus slept so long that when he awakened the ship was dark and still — and empty — and he was utterly disorientated for a long moment until he realised that the keel must be fast in the sand.

  Charmides was asleep by his back, and the new man — did he really call himself Ax, or was that just his sense of humour? — sat on the helmsman’s bench, strumming empty air with his fingers as if he had an instrument in them.

  ‘You are awake,’ Ax said quietly.

  ‘I am,’ Satyrus said. He felt like going back to sleep.

  Ax grinned. ‘Your Neiron conned the ship ashore at the edge of day, and they left you to sleep.’

  Satyrus managed to climb over the stern, drop to the beach and find his tent. Then he fell on a pile of skins and went straight back to sleep.

  Dawn, and Charmides was forcing him awake, and they were away over the wine-dark sea again, sailing south and a little east into the deep blue, as sailors called it. There were no islands now between them and Cyprus, home of foam-born Aphrodite. No islands and no refuge.

  But the weather was spectacular; high golden clouds in the morning, and by mid-afternoon a sky of such dazzling, brilliant blue that it might have seemed as if they had sailed across the very top of the world. Satyrus sacrificed the only animal aboard (except for the cat), a rooster, to Poseidon and to Aphrodite for the day and the sailing, and they cooked the rooster over the fire pot, a big clay pot that ships used to carry fire from one beach to another.

  Down the wind they flew, and no hand touched an oar from dawn to dark.

  They raised Cyprus well before darkness fell, and sailed into a harbour on the west coast — a harbour that had seen its share of pirates, for the only lights were on the mountain, six stades and more away in the clear evening air. But fishermen — a brave lot in any land — came in an hour to sell them lobsters and snapper and mullet, and they made big fires from driftwood and cooked, and Satyrus was asleep again.

  But in the morning, the oarsmen had to earn their keep. Now the wind was from the east and east along the coast was where they had to go, and rowing into the eye of the wind was miserable work, the more so as no man aboard was fully recovered from three days of fighting without sleep.

  Satyrus passed the day learning the convolutions of Anaxagoras’ mind. He was strangely humoured — a man who seemed utterly unafraid of causing offence, for whom a jest was more important than meat or drink. His great-grandfather had been the famous philosopher and opponent of Socrates, and he had many anecdotes about the philosophers of Athens that Satyrus had never heard.

  He had been born to an old family, and he’d held one of the priesthoods of Nemesis as a boy and fallen in love with singing and music. And dance. ‘I danced in armour at two Panathenaic Games,’ he said with pride. ‘And I was a chariot runner at a third.’

  Satyrus smiled. It all seemed a little fantastical to him. ‘Chariot runner?’

  ‘In Athens — you have been to Athens?’

  ‘I’m a citizen. My father was Kineas of Athens.’ Satyrus sat back against the shrine of the sea god, which in between sacrifices made a fine backrest for the helmsman.

  ‘Of course. Have you seen the games?’ Anaxagoras asked.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘I was too young to attend, and then-’ He smiled. ‘And then I was an exile, a soldier and then a king.’

  Anaxagoras’ face darkened. ‘Kings are all the rage, at Athens.’ Then his face cleared. ‘At any rate, I was a chariot runner. That means that, dressed in full armour, you leap on and off a chariot moving at speed.’

  Satyrus smiled. ‘Sounds dangerous.’ He paused. ‘Have you ever. . fought? Hand to hand?’

  Anaxagoras shook his head, deflated. ‘No. When the wide-arsed pirates took us, I was asleep, and then I was a captive. I’ve never faced a man across the spear points.’

  Satyrus raised an eyebrow. Charmides smiled at the Athenian. ‘I have — twice! Terrifying. . beautiful, sir. You will enjoy it.’

  S
atyrus held out his horn cup to Charmides for a refill. ‘No one — and I mean no one I know — has ever called combat beautiful.’

  Satyrus accepted that Anaxagoras was god-sent. He bore the mark of Apollo, the golden hair of the god, and he was a musician. What more could Satyrus want? And Satyrus had rescued him from pirates, as his father had rescued Philokles from the sea.

  ‘Sometimes things are simple,’ Satyrus said, after he had drunk some more wine.

  ‘Almost never,’ Anaxagoras replied.

  ‘My father rescued Philokles from the sea, and they were friends for life,’ Satyrus said, as the rowers under his feet cursed his need for speed.

  ‘I would wager that there was much more to it than that,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘Some basic similarity, some appreciation and some shared experience — perhaps shared immediately after the rescue. Let’s face it, rescued men rarely love their rescuers.’ He winked at Charmides.

  Charmides had been listening with rapt attention. ‘Why? How ungracious!’

  ‘Perhaps, but human.’ Ax laughed. ‘Listen, lad, nothing spoils a man’s image of himself than being in debt for his life. The myths are full of such stuff.’

  ‘But Philokles was a great man,’ Charmides said.

  Satyrus looked at the Lesvian boy. ‘How do you know that?’ Satyrus asked. ‘I mean, you have heard the older men speak of him?’

  Charmides shook his head. He looked away, and then looked back, and he was blushing. ‘He fought for some time on Lesvos.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Yes, of course. That’s where he was before Pater met him. Mythymna.’

  ‘If this Philokles overcame self-love to love his rescuer, he was a noble man indeed. Are we talking of Philokles the philosopher? Of Alexandria?’ Ax looked interested.

  ‘My tutor. And one of the noblest men who ever lived. But you, sir — are you ungracious? I rescued you, and you seem to take it in good part.’ Satyrus smiled. It was a pleasure to have someone to tease.

  ‘I think it only shows how very noble I am,’ Anaxagoras said with a slow smile.